Tag: Ivy League

When I’m asked about how one goes about studying at a US university, or at least one modelled on the American higher education system, I’m usually first asked something along the lines of: is “college” the same thing as “university”, and what is a liberal arts degree? I decided to start writing up my responses to these questions I get asked all the time, and I answered that first general question in my article A Guide for Non-Americans: What is “college” and how does it differ from university?

The second question people ask is often not even phrased as a question. It goes something along the lines of, “Oh, there’s no way I could afford to study in the US. It’s too expensive, and I’m not that rich.” The question embedded in that is, how do you afford it? Did you get a scholarship, or are you simply very wealthy?

The answer, to both of the above questions, is no. Well, mostly no. I have received a scholarship to study at Yale-NUS and for my time at Yale, but there’s still no chance I could afford to study there if that was the only financial support I’d received. So here’s a guide to how it works, and you should, for the most part, find reason to be pleased: if you are committed to working incredibly hard for a few years to gain admission to a top US university, the finances will work themselves out. Really.

If one of the first things you’ve done is looked at the fees listed on US college and university websites, most of us would indeed have reason to close our browsers, run a mile from the computer, and never again consider studying in America. Yale, for instance, says that the base cost of attendance for one year for an undergraduate in 2016-17 is USD$68,230. I emphasise: United. States. Dollars. At current exchange rates, that’s NZD$98,000 and AUD$93,000. Of those fees, USD$50,000 is the tuition cost, and the remainder is for room, board, and other expenses. I’m taking Yale as my example, but the numbers are really very similar for most universities as an international student (we aren’t eligible for any subsidies).

But unfortunately for those of us from countries outside the United States, things get even more expensive. Roundtrip flights from Wellington, New Zealand to New York, for instance, come to roughly NZD$2,500, and you’d be looking at doing that flight twice a year. The reality is you’re unlikely to stay in your room on campus for the entire semester, so you’re going to need money to cover other living expenses, maybe a couple of thousand per semester. Exchange rate differences can come to be truly scary—some of my friends have seen their cost of attendance double or even triple in the course of a year depending on how the exchange rate swings.

To put it simply: the sticker price for a year of study at a US university is going to be over $100,000, whether in Australian or New Zealand dollars. For a degree, then (four years at US universities), it’s going to come to roughly half a million NZ/AU dollars.

Before I get onto the details of how that amount is very rarely what you would be paying, here’s one brutal reality: only the top universities have the financial resources to subsidise the cost of your education. The middle band of US universities—the ones which in all likelihood you haven’t heard of—will not provide financial assistance to international students. This means that unless you can afford the full price of the education as above, you need to gain admission to one of the top universities to have your education subsidised. The Ivy League.

And what of the Ivies, the other top small liberal arts colleges, and international universities like Yale-NUS College and New York University in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai? What do they do differently? The key term you want to know is financial aid.

“Yale admits students without regard to their ability to pay and meets 100% of demonstrated financial need. For all students. Without loans.”

Restated, this means that if you are admitted, Yale will then look at your family’s financial situation and make an offer of financial support that will make it feasible for you to attend. It’s not about taking out a loan. It’s simply a subsidy on the total cost of attendance, and the subsidy can vary from a few thousand dollars to 100% of the cost. Yale also states that “Families whose total gross income is less than USD$65,000 (with typical assets) are not expected to make a contribution towards their child’s Yale education. Over 10% of Yale undergraduate families have an Expected Family Contribution of $0.” In 2015-16, the average financial aid award amount was USD$43,989; in other words, the average award cut fees by almost two thirds.

I’m taking Yale’s statements here as examples, but most other top universities offer almost identically-worded policies. The immense endowments of these universities make these generous financial aid policies possible, where other universities are simply unable to offer them.

It’s disappointing that many immensely talented young New Zealanders don’t bother applying to top international universities each year simply because they assume it will be too expensive. I’ve had friends and acquaintances who had dismissed the idea of international study from the start because their parents had told them not to even think about it, without knowing about financial aid.

The hard part is getting in. It is hard, but not impossible. If you have the brain and the work ethic, gaining admission should be your only focus; you should not let concern of finances stand in your way.

If you haven’t already, I do encourage you to read my post on liberal arts colleges in the US. US higher education is unique for its focus on the liberal arts, which offer students an opportunity to figure out what you should do, before then going on to learn how to do it for postgraduate study. That’s very, very different to what our universities in this part of the world offer, and it’s an idea that I think we should take far more seriously.

About

Welcome. This is the personal website of Michael Moore-Jones. I'm a New Zealander and a Philosophy, Politics and Economics student at Yale-NUS College. I've previously studied at Yale University and ten other academic institutions in six countries.